


Shot in the Dark

by L_E_D



Category: Original Work
Genre: Blood and Gore, Multi, Swearing, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2019-11-26 18:17:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18184088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/L_E_D/pseuds/L_E_D
Summary: Two prison escapees try to make it in a world where the lights must always stay on.(A/N: I'm using this story to practice some stuff. Feel free to read, but it won't always track.)





	1. Prologue: What Was Supposed to Be the End

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a bored college student and I needed a hobby.

 

_ When you’re well and truly fucked, there’s really no point in trying to find a way out.  It’s always better to just accept your fate and go from there. But old habits die hard, and Jessie’s never been known for noticing a lost cause when she sees one. And so she takes notice of the exits; the well bolted door to the cockpit, the synthetic strands holding the cargo door closed, the creaky latch on the dirt caked floor, the chains tying her to her seat- well and truly fucked. _

 

_ There are six other prisoners in the cargo haul: five humans, one exoculo. All of them have that look on their face like they’d rather jump off the plane right now and crash into the ground than get at their destination in one piece. Jessie can’t blame them; she’s probably wearing the same expression. She tugs at the handcuffs around her wrists for what feels like the hundredth time in ten minutes.  _

 

_ The same kind of straps closing the cargo door are restraining her torso against the wall, yellow and dirty. There’s a metal collar around her neck, connected to her handcuffs by a loose chain, its irritating jingling heard over the harsh sound of the wind bouncing around the cabin. She does her best to focus on it, instead of the thick layer of panic and dread that clouds her mind. She’d been so stupid, thinking she wouldn’t end up here. Of course they’d catch her eventually. Of course, no one could come save her now. The guy sitting across from her breaks into loud sobs, rattling his chain. The jingling sound gets louder. _

 

_ She glances at the prisoners once more. Three of the humans look as if they’d been beaten to a pulp right before take off. One seems unconscious, another keeps baring his teeth at anyone who so much as glances at him, and the third one is steadily drooling a pool of blood at her feet. Jessie scrunches her nose. Gross. The last human prisoner is sitting to her right, and he’s shaking so bad it feels as though he’s vibrating against her arm.  _

 

_ The only calm passenger, it would seem, is the exoculo to her left. His breathing is steady, though his long pointed ears keep twitching, making his blindfold shift under his eyebrows. Jessie is as surprised as she is glad they let him keep it on. The exoculi’s absence of eyes was always unnerving to look at. Curious, she glances at his neck. There, a fresh tattoo is bleeding black on the matte, grey skin of his nape. It reads 20108. Jessie has to stop a low whistle from escaping her lips. The first number was how old the criminal was when put on the watchlist; the second was how many years it took for them to get caught. Eight years was a ridiculously long time on the lam. Most criminals barely even got to one.  _

 

_ Although she can’t see her own tattoo, she knows what it reads. 1703. The collar shifts against it, moving the chain. It itches. _

 

_ A voice somewhat overpowered by the wind and the rumblings of the engine takes her away from her thoughts.  _

 

_ “Can I help you with somethin’?” _

 

_ The exoculo turns his head towards her. Although, like all of them, his hair had been shaved down to nothing more than a buzzcut, she can see the shadow of what was once licorice red hair.  Jessie makes an inquisitive hum. _

 

_ “I can see you starin’”, he says. His words slur together in a way that reminds Jessie of a drunk. She glances at her feet, guilty. Exoculi saw through sound waves and echolocation or… something. Honestly, Jessie had never really bothered to look into how exoculi senses worked. The gist of it was, the more noise, the better they ‘saw’ . Of course he’d notice her looking. The plane was so noisy he could probably count her eyelashes.  _

 

_ The exoculo sat up straighter, tilting his head back against the metal wall. “Alright, if you ain’t gonna talk, then I’m gonna.” _

 

_ Jessie huffs a laugh, more due to stress than the guy’s comment.  _

 

_ “My name’s Seth,” he says, letting his head loll towards her. “Was a worker in the solar plants for a while. Then I became a contract killer. Now I’m here.”  _

 

_ Jessie remains silent, taken aback by the exoculo’s relaxed demeanor and willingness to share information. The guy, Seth, raises an eyebrow while making a broad sweeping gesture with his hand - well, both hands really. The shackles make it hard to do otherwise. “This is the part where you tell me about yourself, lady.”  _

 

_ Jessie frowns. More silence. _

 

_ Seth sighs. “Look, were already goin’ to fucking Oceania. There’s literally nothing worse that can happen to you now. Might as well make the flight there less boring, yeah?” _

 

_ The guy had a point. _

 

_ “Jessie. Bodyguard,” Jessie mumbles.  _

 

_ “That wasn’t so hard, now was it?” It’s Seth’s turn to smile. “But people don’t end up here for just being bodyguards. C’mon, what’d you do?” _

 

_ “I got arrested for murder by arson.” Saying it outloud feels weird. Jessie grimaces. _

 

_ “What’d you burn down?” There’s no animosity in his words, no accusatory tone. Just curiosity. The weird feeling in her chest dissipates a bit. _

 

_ “Nothing. I rescued my boss from a burning building. They caught me, needed an excuse to bring me in and confirm who I was.”  _

 

_ Seth frowned at her words. “Are you saying you’re innocent?” _

 

_ “No.” _

 

_ Over the next few hours, she and Seth talk without pause, never leaving enough of a gap to create an awkward silence. They both need the distraction from the fear blooming inside them.  _

 

_ Jessie learns a lot about the exoculo. He’d come to Earth to cut all ties with his life at the time. He’d believed that coming to her world would mean true freedom. Jessie hadn’t been able to hold back a snort at the irony of the situation. She learns that Seth became an assassin after accidentally causing someone’s death. He’d figured that if he was going to be a killer, he should make the most of it. And so he went after the ones the law didn’t touch: rapists, rich thieves, slave owners; the works, really. Despite having become nothing less than a serial killer, he’d been left alone; the law had bigger fish to fry than a man killing criminals. But then he’d taken it a step to far; he’d gone and killed one of them. He was arrested the next day. Yes, Jessie learns a lot about Seth, and decides that she likes what she hears. _

 

_ Their long conversation is interrupted by a sudden feeling of weightlessness as the plane begins its descent. Jessie swallows audibly. The silence returns, and her desperation to fill it remains. Talking is a distraction, talking means calm and less panic. There are too many concerns on her mind, all fighting to come out of her mouth. How long did he think they were going to survive down there? Would the desert or the other prisoners get them first? Would the light of the moon be enough at night? Would they ever be able to go back?  _

 

_ In the end, she doesn’t ask any of those things. She knows the answers would only make her feel worse. Instead, she settles for something safer. _

 

_ “How long is your sentence?” _

 

_ His response is immediate. “Two hundred and fifty years. You?” _

 

_ “Ten.” _

 

_ There’s a pause before both of them burst into a fit of laughter, albeit choked and shaky. Sentences were always a percentage of your life expectancy, for “fairness reasons”. But that reasoning was a pile of bullshit, and everyone knew it. The length of the sentence didn’t matter, because no one lived long enough to see the end. And even if they did, no one bothered to go look for them in the wide expanses of the desert once it was over. Being sentenced to Oceania was a death sentence, long and excruciating.  _

 

_ It takes a few moments, but their mild episode of hysteria fades. Seth speaks again, a weak smile on his lips, his voice shakier than it was a minute ago. “Y’know”, he slurs, “the survival rate for the first week, it’s really fuckin’ low.” _

 

_ Jessie nods. She knows all too well. “They say it doesn’t go over 3%.” _

 

_ “Right,” Seth agreed. He hesitated for a second before continuing. “They say that rate triples if you ain’t alone…” _

 

_ Jessie smiled. She knew a good offer when she heard one.  _

 

_ “You don’t say?”  _


	2. Episode 1: So, a Flying Tentacle Monster Walks Into a Desert

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im so so bored. forgive me.

**Mental Log, Day: 3**

 

“So they accused me of cheating,” Seth slurs, dragging his feet through the sand, “and they kicked me out. Which doesn’t make any sense, yanno?”

 

He turns to Jessie, who’s been purposefully lagging behind. “How can anyone cheat at a drinkin’ contest?”

 

She remains silent, squinting at him through the harsh sunlight. 

 

Seth sighs. “C’mon kid. You gotta talk at least a lil’ bit, yeah? I need some confirmation you’re not just a mirage.”

 

They face each other for a moment, before Jessie cracks; no use trying to win a staring match with a man with no eyes. She purses her lips. “I think they were just looking for an excuse to kick the loud asshole out of the bar.”

 

Jessie snickers through his affronted gasp.

 

**Mental Log, Day: 156**

 

Jessie stares at the night sky, the bright stars and the glow of the moon basking everything in a dark blue light. For once, there is no wind, no shifting sand. Seth is lying next to her, his breathing quiet while he sleeps. 

 

She takes a deep breath, and enjoys the silence.

 

**Mental Log, Day: 450**

 

“Do you think they’re any succubi stuck in here too?” asks Seth.

 

“Doubt it. They’re wired to make others feel good. How would they ever end up in a place full of murderers?”

A pause.

 

“Why?”

 

“I miss sex,” he says with shrug. “And you never know. Maybe they accidentally killed someone during some-,” he hesitates, waves a hand around, “ -messed up BDSM thing.”

 

Jessie wrinkles her nose. “And you’d  _ want _ to have sex with this hypothetical person?”

 

“Hey, don’t knock it ‘til you try it.”

 

**Mental Log, Day: 893… or was it 894?**

  
  


Jessie moves her hair out of her face with shaky hands, covered in blood. “Stay with me, c’mon, stay with me.”

 

Seth it weezing, blood spurting from his throat.

 

She puts more pressure on his wound. Her hands shake harder. “Close your throat, c’mon, I know you can do it.”

 

They’re another large gash across his face. She rips his blindfold off, ignoring the dark depth it reveals, and presses it against his throat. The weezing stops.

 

She can feels his stuttering heartbeat beneath her fingertips. “Stay with me, please, Seth, stay with me.” Her cheeks feel wet. She wipes one with a trembling hand, but the wet feeling remains.

 

“Please…”

 

**Mental Log, Day: Somewhere around 1600. Probably.**

 

“If I decided to try to learn how to do a cartwheel, would you help me keep my feet  above my head.”

 

Jessie blinks, stops in her tracks. “Remember those three months you couldn’t talk? That was a good time.”

 

Seth exhales a choked laugh, and continues forward, forcing her to follow suit. “Ah, but it allowed my voice to evolve! Now, I sound even better than I used to.”

 

“When I met you, you sounded like an smoking alcoholic. Now, you just sound like you tried to give a blender a blow job.”

 

He nods. “So you agree. A fantastic improvement.”

 

The echo of Jessie’s amused sigh gets lost in the emptiness around them.

  
  


**Mental Log, Day: Unknown.**

 

Jessie is glaring at her feet, watching bits of sand fall to the ground as she vigorously rubs her skull. The scorching sun is burning the back of her neck, her body is soaked in sweat, and her hair seems to have an endless supply of sand. She eventually gives up, throwing her hands in the air. “That’s it!” she practically shouts. “I’ve decided; I fucking hate sand.” 

 

Seth snorts. “We’ve been livin’ in a desert for years and you’re coming to this conclusion  _ now _ ?”

 

He’s lounging against a dune at her feet, his arms folded behind his head.

 

“Yup,” confirms Jessie, still shaking her hair. “ For years now, I’ve been trying to see the good side of it, like ‘oh, the dunes could hide us from enemies’ or ‘if I’m bored I can always build a sand castle’” -Seth huffs a laugh- “but now, I’m done.”

 

Her hands fall to her sides as her shoulders slump in defeat. “It’s in my hair, my ears, my ass. I am  _ positive _ that there is always at least one grain of sand stuck somewhere between my teeth. Hell, I’m pretty sure you have some in the holes where your eyeballs would be.”

 

Seth readjusts his blindfold, unbothered by his friend’s tantrum; anything to escape the perpetual boredom. “I mean, it ain’t as much a ‘hole’”-he mimes the quotation mark- “as it is a-”

 

Jessie interrupts him with a loud groan. “Don’t start.”

 

He snickers as she plops down in the sand next to him. “You can’t let this stuff get to you, Saki. You’ll go crazy.”

 

“It’s too late far that. And you can blame your goddamn relaxed attitude. It’s infuriating.”

 

The truth is, Jessie is grateful for the redundant banter. After years isolated together, the pool of conversation topics has long dried out. Nothing left to talk about, all anecdotes told and told again, all subjects debated  _ ad nauseum _ . The mindless back and forth is indulgent at best, something to do when everything has already been done. 

 

“What can I say,” he replies with a smile, “sand don’t bother me all that much.”

 

“Oh, is that right?” Jessie says. She grabs a handful of sands and turns towards him. 

 

Seth hums in agreement, before sitting up suddenly. His smile vanishes, his hum having revealed to him what Jessie was doing. He lifts a hand before his face, a preemptive shield. “Don’t.”

 

“Admit that sand sucks and I won’t have to.”

 

“I refuse to be bullied into changin’ my mind.”

 

“You wouldn’t be calling it bullying if sand didn’t bother you.”

 

“Yeah well, bricks don’t bother me either, doesn’t mean I appreciate ‘em being thrown in my face.”

 

“I never said I was gon-” Jessie cuts herself off as her gaze slides to as spot behind Seth’s head. Her eyes widen. “Oh, what the fuck is that?”

 

Seth spins around on his knees, his long-pointed ears twitching wildly. “What, what?” He frowns, annoyed. “I can’t see anythin’, too much interference.”

 

A hot breeze is blowing across the desert air, lifting the sand high above the ground. Jessie would comment that his statement proves she was right, if she wasn’t so preoccupied but that  _ thing _ in the distance. 

 

The  _ thing _ is about a hundred meters away, dark, round-ish, and, most notably, flying zigzags through the air.  Jessie blinks a few times, willing the weird image away. Unfortunately, the  _ thing  _ still exists, undulating and moving around like a sped up Pong ball.  “There’s a floating-” she hesitates, squinting harder, “-thing over there.”

 

“Uh huh,” Seth deadpans. “A thing. Of course.”

 

“Shut up!  _ You  _ can’t even see it,” she exclaims, turning her head back briefly to glare at him. “See if you get anything with a whistle.”

 

Seth sits up, sticks two fingers in his mouth, and blows. The loud, high pitched noise fills the air. For a moment, nothing happens, and Jessie begins to think it failed, when Seth perks up suddenly, ears twitching. His eyebrows reach his hairline. “Oh! What in the name of all hell is that?”

 

Jessie smiles, triumphant. “Can you tell what it is? All I can see is a floating blob.”

 

Seth turns his head towards it, a frown of concentration on his face as he whistles again, softer this time, almost melodically. “That’s basically what it is actually.” His frown deepens. “I think it’s… leaking somethin’.”

 

“It’s  _ leaking _ ?”

 

Seth nods slowly, still focused. “Yeah, there’s definitely somethin’ drippin’ from it.” His words slur together more and more as his focus is taken away from their conversation. He turns towards it fully, both ears tilted in  _ it _ ’s direction.  “The way it’s moving-” he interrupts himself to whistle again, “-I think it’s looking for somethin’. It’s movin’ like a scanning drone.”

 

“So, what do you think we should do?” she asks, looking back at him, and immediately regretting it. He’s is wearing  _ that  _ smile. She raises a hand towards him, as though wanting to stop him before he even tries to start. “Oh no, no.  _ No _ . I know that face. It’s your shitty idea face.” Seth’s smile widdens, and she smacks his shoulder. “Whatever you’re thinking of doing, don’t.” Her tone is firm, but she knows it's pointless; Seth had always been stubborn when it came to his own stupidity.

 

“Look,” he starts, and Jessie is already wincing in apprehension, “since it looks like it’s looking for something, I think it’d be a good idea to help out.”

 

Before Jessie can protest,  Seth is turned back towards  _ it _ , waving his arms wildly above his head. “Woohoo, over here!”

 

Panic overtakes Jessie as she throws herself onto his back, using one hand to hold down one of his arms while the other reaches around his neck to cover his mouth. “Are you insane?!” she hisses in his ear. “You don’t know if that thing is dangerous!”

 

Seth wiggles his way out of her hold to face her, turning his back to  _ it _ . “Saki, c’mon, you’re overreacting. It’s the size of a football, what’s it gonna do?”

 

Jessie’s eyes go wide as she points at a spot over his shoulder. “That.”

 

He makes an inquisitive noise and turns around, ears at the ready. “Oh. Right. That.”

 

Behind him, the  _ thing _ had started to make its way to them, it’s path direct, all hesitation in its movements gone. The black blob actually seems to be accelerating through the air, approaching them alarmingly quickly. Seth zips around to face Jessie again, panic contorting his features. “So, when do we start runnin’?”

 

The _ thing  _ becomes more defined as it gets closer. Jessie can see parts of it moving wildly, as if its limb want to escape its body. 

 

Now, she knows the smart thing to do would probably be to answer ‘now’ and sprint in the opposite direction. From experience, nothing in this nightmarish hellscape they call a desert  heads your way to be your cuddle buddy.  _ However _ , when it came to Seth, Jessie could never resist making the petty choice over the intelligent one.

 

“Running? Why would we run?” she smirks. “Afterall, it’s  _ probably a good idea to help out _ ,” she says in a mocking tone.

 

Seth looks more than ready to make her regret her words but before he can open his mouth, the  _ thing _ comes to an abrupt stop before them. Jessie holds her breath, and stares.

 

__ The _ thing _ , as it turns out, is actually a mess of moving black tentacles. Floating at eye level, it steadily drips a dark oily substance, creating a small puddle at their feet. Its tentacles move at a slow, lazy rhythm, releasing a stench so thick, Jessie thinks she could see it if she squints hard enough. 

 

“Oh God, what the fuck is that?!” Seth whines, his voice a few octaves higher than usual.

 

“I have no idea, but it’s ve- HOLY SHIT!” Jessie screams, taking a few panicked steps back. 

 

Her outburst comes after the _ thing’s  _  tentacles suddenly shoot out from its center, like fingers extending from an exposed palm. A thick ball of viscous liquid plops on the ground from its middle and the stench becomes exponentially stronger, thick and overpowering. It’s so strong, it’s almost enough distract Jessie from the voice coming from within the creature.

 

“H-hello?” says a voice filled with static. “Can you h-hear me? H-hello?”

 

If Jessie’s eyes could get any wider, they’d simply pop out of her skull. “Son of a  _ half _ .”

 

With its tentacles no longer hiding its center, she can see a small square monitor seemingly fused with the creature itself. On the screen is the slightly pixelated image of a human boy, most likely in his late teenage years. From what she can see of him on screen, the boy seems to be completely covered in soot. The tip of his bangs are curled up as if recently burnt, and part of his left eyebrow is missing. He looks at if he’s just returned from a casual stroll in a minefield. 

 

The boy’s face breaks into a large grin has Jessie walks in front of the screen. “Are you Miss Jessie Sesaki?”

 

Jessie simply stares in shock, unable to form any kind of verbal response. Her mind is running a mile a minute, doing what it can to understand what the actual hell is floating before her, this semi-living contraption most likely assembled with the contents of a sushi restaurant dumpster. 

 

It takes a few seconds, but she eventually nods in answer to the boy’s question, curiosity winning over her urge to remain anonymous. His smile widdens. “ _ Fantastic _ ! I was afraid this would take longer.” 

 

Jessie can’t seem to do much more than blink at him. “What.” 

 

It comes out more as a raspy croak than a question, but Jessie’s just glad she still has the ability to form words. She can practically feel the shock and confusion radiating from Seth at her side. While it’s true he has no way of knowing the details of what’s on screen, Jessie figures he isn’t missing much. Between the harsh sunlight hitting the monitor directly and the darkness of what it shows, she can barely see anything herself. She can only see the boy; anything of his environment nothing more than a shadowy unknown.

 

“Right, this must be very confusing to you,” the boy says sheepishly. He scratches his head again. “My name is Isaac Priest, and I was h-hired by one Jacqueline H-hayes to free you from Oceania.” 

 

Silence. The sand stops moving, the Earth stops turning, time stops altogether. 

  
  


As Isaac’s words sink in, Jessie feels her heartbeat accelerate, getting more and more erratic by the second. All of the uncomfortable feelings she’s gotten accustomed to over the years now feel unbearable, just on the wrong side of too much. The squinting before the cloudless sky, the burning of her skin, the constant itch in her throat, the taste of sand in her mouth, she needs all of it gone.  _ Now _ . Now that she knows she can escape it. Now that it might not be forever. 

 

Jack had said it was impossible. That once you set foot on that God forsaken island, there was no going back. But now she was getting her out. It had taken her  _ years _ , but she’d done it.  _ She was getting her out! _

 

“You know,” Seth says after a beat, “I think I finally get what people mean when they say that they feel the weight of the world liftin’ of their shoulders.” He cocks his head to the side. “It’s kinda soothing.”

 

“How.”

 

It doesn’t even sound like a question. Jessie’s brain feels filled with euphoric static; she couldn’t form a complete thought if she tried. 

 

“Ah!” Isaac exclaims with a smirk, pride obvious in his voice. “Don’t worry, I got everything figured out.  _ Including _ h-how to go get your buddy h-here out with you.”

 

Jessie blinks rapidly, willing herself out of her stupor, a quick mumble of “It’s Seth, by the way” heard behind her. 

 

“You see,” continues Isaac, “I figured that if you’d actually survived this long, there was no way you’d h-have done it alone. So, I arranged a way for at least four people to escape together.” The boy peers behind her with an annoyed expression before shrugging. “Bah, at least you’ll h-have some leg room.”

 

Jessie nods along to his explanation, but it takes a while for the words to actually register. Her attention catches on Isaac’s first words. “You said ‘survived this long’- How long have we been here, exactly?”

 

Seth perks up at the question. “Yeah, I was wonderin’ about that too.”

 

Isaac’s smile seems to flicker for second, revealing a guilty look, before being quickly replaced by another grin. “Miss H-hayes h-has insisted that all details of your time in Oceania only be discussed at your return, Miss Sesaki.”

 

The statement sounds practiced, like Isaac is just repeating something he’s memorized. Jessie bites her lip, a heavy weight settling in her stomach. Jack wouldn’t keep good news a secret. She knows it’s been eight years, at the very least, but based on this, it’s probably been longer.

 

She considers pushing him for more information, but settles for not questioning the virtual man inside the flying alien octopus. Instead, she utters a simple “Call me Jessie.” 

 

She’ll have plenty of time to pester the kid about it  later (or so she hopes).

 

“Alright Jessie,” he says, the enthusiasm back in his voice,“h-here’s h-how we do this.”

 

She nods, ready to hear how this stuttering teenager was going to get her out of the only, and therefore insanely secure, prison in the world.

 

“First thing to note,” he begins, “is that nothing can go in or out of Oceania by its shores. Angels are constantly scanning for anything biological or technological passing its borders. The only was to leave is by teleportation gate.

 

“Now, I tried creating my own, but anything alive I put through mine came out, uh, very dead on the other side. So, the only way to do this is by using the angels’ supply gate. You guys show up, take out as many angels as possible before they notice you, plug me into the gate controls so i can h-hack its coordinates, and  _ voilà _ ! You guys walk through the gate and come out the other side in the Americas.” Isaac clicks his tongue. “ Easy peasy.”   
  


All of that is said very quickly, and it takes Jessie a moment to consider his plan. She cocks an eyebrow. There is nothing easy  _ or  _ peasy about anything in this guy’s plan. If anything, what he’s suggesting is downright suicidal.

 

“I can see that you guys are skeptical,” he continues, “but trust me, I got this. To make all this work, you guys need to be very fast, and h-hit very hard from a significant distance. So I’m sending you guys a car.”

 

Jessie practically feels her jaw hit the floor. A  _ car _ ?

 

“My teleportation gates can’t be used by people, but they can move anything inanimate. Granted, they come out a bit barbecued, but it’s really not that bad, all things considered.

 

“The car h-has no roof and a sniper rifle attached to the back seat. One of you drives while the other shoots the angels down from afar. Whoever the shooter is” -Isaac takes a deep breath, his expression suddenly severe- “they  _ cannot _ miss.”

 

Jessie watches Seth’s concerned pout morph into a cocky smile; she wishes she could share his confidence. 

 

Missing a shot would mean two things. First, because angels share something akin to a hive mind, one of them getting injured would result in all of them being aware of their presence. If the angel dies quickly enough, say, from a headshot, then the others don’t notice the sudden disconnect. But a serious injury would get them caught for sure.

 

Her second big concern is the angels’ ability to deflect pain. If anyone causes an angel any harm, the pain they’re supposed to feel is instead inflicted on their attacker. It’s the main reason no one tries to fuck with angels. It also means that if the shooter misses and doesn’t instantly kill their target, they’d be in too much pain to continue. 

 

So all in all: missed shot = instant failure. In Jessie’s mind, there is only one option. She turns to face Seth. 

 

Now, there is something important one must know to truly understand Jessie and Seth’s friendship. Over the years, after what had felt like a million encounters with scavengers, insane prisoners, angels, and, on one memorable occasion, cannibals, they’d begun to develop a form of silent communication in order to protect themselves. As they had spent literally every second of everyday together for years, they’d discovered their ability to read each other's expressions with pinpoint accuracy. This life saving skill had eventually turned into a habit. And so today, most of their public arguments are done solely through eyebrow and lip twitches. 

 

Seth begins to hum under his breath as Jessie mentally prepares herself for the debate she knows she can’t avoid.

 

_ Seth, you have to let me shoot. _

 

_ No way. _

 

_ I can’t run the risk of you getting hurt if you miss. _

 

_ I have the skill for it. _

 

_ You know that’s not what this is about. I can’t get hurt by this.  _ You _ can. _

 

_ We have to take the risk, because  _ you _ can’t aim. _

 

_ Pff, I can aim. _

 

_ You couldn’t hit a seven feet tall man if he was running at you from point blank range. I can say that, because I’ve seen it happen.  _

 

_ What makes you think you’re any better? _

 

_ I was literally a professional marksman for eight years. _

 

A pause. 

 

_ Trust me on this. _

 

Jessie huffs in defeat. “Fine! Fine. I’ll drive.”

 

Isaac is staring at them on the screen, his mouth slightly opened, visibly confused. He blinks, snapping out of his daze, before speaking. “Ok, good, glad that’s settled. One more thing before I send the car over,” he says. “You need to remove your h-halos. If you keep them on, there’s no way the angel gate will let you through.”

 

Jessie sighs deeply, lowering her head and pinching the bridge of her nose. Next to her, she feels Seth deflate. 

 

Halos are small electronic -or so she thinks- chips. Given to everyone at birth, they are implanted at the base of the neck, in between the collarbones. They were gifts offered to the world by the angels when they first came to Earth.  Jessie doesn’t know much about them, but she has to admit that they are, objectively speaking, amazing. They eliminate a person’s need for food entirely, help prevent most diseases, keep track of one’s identity as well as one’s money. They are most likely the reason humanity isn’t extinct right now. But halos also track its owner location, and apparently, stop them from using angel gates.

When Jessie had started to work for Jack, she had been forced remove hers. Another had been put in its place by the angels before sending her to Oceania, all those years ago. 

 

She presses her thumb against her lower canine, dreading what she has to say next. “Consider it done.”

 

Seth nods in agreement.

 

_ We don’t tell him. _

 

_ Deal. _

 

When a prisoner is sent to Oceania, the halo gains another function; it tracks its owner’s water supply. A drone follows its signal, and delivers water every fifteen miles traveled by the prisoner. This is what keeps the inmates too occupied to look for an escape, but also what keeps them alive. Without a halo, there is no more signal, no more water. 

 

If this plan fails, it’s game over. They’re dead. 

 

*******

 

A tentacle unfurls.

A metal bead falls in the sand. It starts to vibrate.

 

The air shimmers, like visible heat.

 

An awful noise, loud enough to pain the eardrums. It sounds like sheet metal being torn, like nails on a chalkboard, like a racoon in a woodchipper.

 

And then… a car.

 

Jessie feels like an idiot, shocked beyond words for what feels like the tenth time in five minutes.

 

Seth whistles. “Holy shit.”

 

Holy shit indeed. The car is actually a Jeep with no doors and a glassless windshield. It’s charred through and through; all of its lights are busted and the paint job is nothing more than a burnt crust. The only seat is behind the steering wheel, as mere metal skeleton of what it probably once was. The whole thing looks as though it’s been microwaved. But it’s there, and in one piece.

 

Isaac’s voice reaches them from the hovering monitor. “Pretty cool, right?”

 

Seth exhales a disbelieving laugh. “‘Pretty cool’? Kid, you just created your own gate. This is fucking amazing.”

 

Jessie nods in agreement. Gate technology is the angels’ most well guarded secret. No other being had ever even come close to replicating it. Until… well, until now, apparently.

 

It’s with that thought in mind that she turns her attention back to the screen. “How are you even alive right now? There’s no way the angels haven’t figured out you can do this.”

 

The boy is quick to dismiss her comment. “No, no. They let me off with a warning.”

 

That’s a lie if she’s ever heard one. Jessie’s internal debate as to whether or not to call him out on it is interrupted Seth’s exclamation of glee. “Saki! Come check out this gun!”

 

Her friend is already at the car, bent in half over the back “seat” in an attempt to pull out one handed what looks like a large sniper rifle screwed to the top of an old coat hanger. In his other hand is a standard pump shotgun. Jessie smiles as she heads over to him. She can’t help but gush in excitement as she grabs the shotgun. “Nice!”

 

Isaac’s screen floats over to him as the boy begins to explain to Seth how to set up his strange rifle contraption. Jessie tunes them out and heads to the front of the car to open the driver side door. After a few tries, it becomes clear the door has been fused to the rest of the car’s body, so she settles for hopping over it and into the driver’s seat, putting the gun down next to it. A quick check at her dashboard reveals the whole things has been damaged beyond repair, save for the  _ on  _ button. She probably would’ve missed it, hadn’t it been for the blackened frame of duct tape surrounding it. 

 

She pushes it gingerly, wary of the toasted vehicule. But the engine simply rumbles to life, and she feels its vibrations in the steering wheel. 

 

Behind her, the guys seem to be done with the rifle’s installation, the coat hanger now solidly stuck into the jeep floor, the gun loosely attached above it. A satisfied hum comes from the monitor as the creature that envelops it floats to the front of the car and sticks itself to the dashboard, like an alien GPS. “Everything looks good,” says Isaac with a pleased smile. “All that’s left is the h-halos. There’s a knife for that in the glove compartment.” 

 

Seth reaches forward, the burnt metal hatch requiring quite a bit of force to open, the effort making him grunt. He eventually gets the knife out, a surprisingly large hunter’s blade, and gets to work first, wincing in pain the whole way. Once his halo it dumped in the sand, Jessie begins the arduous process herself. The scraping of the weapon against her bones is felt through her entire torso, causing an uncomfortable shiver to go up her spine. A drop of blood leaks from the self-inflicted cut, tickling as rolls down her chest.

 

Disappointed by her inability to keep the knife on her (the rags she’s wearing aren’t really equipped for weapon concealing), she stashes it back in the glove box. She turns her head to Seth in the back of the Jeep. “You ready?”

 

He nods, hands clasped around the coat hanger. “Ready.”

 

She steps on the gas, and the car takes off.

 

The first hour or so of the drive is mostly done in silence. Once Isaac had specified the way to go, he’d stepped away from the camera, stating he needed to prepare for the angel gate. The desert is bland and empty, making the drive almost hypnotic, the minutes blending one another.

 

Jessie wishes she were in a state of mind to enjoy her first car ride in years, with the wind in her hair and the feeling of freedom from the intense speed, but she barely registers anything other than her own thoughts. Her chest is burning with a sensation that can either be anticipation or terror; she isn’t quite sure which. Seth’s hand presses gently on her shoulder, and she feels all the air slowly pour out of her lungs. She nods, cracks her neck, and steps on the gas harder than before.

 

It takes a while but eventually, Isaac returns on the screen. “Alright! As luck would h-have it, you guys were actually relatively close to the shore, so you should be there in about fifteen minutes.”

 

He lifts a piece of paper in front of him, bringing it forward enough to make it cover the entire screen. The camera takes a second to adjusts its zoom onto the paper, revealing a crudely drawn map of the shore. Jessie takes a moment to tear her attention away from the desert before the car to check out Isaac’s sketch. “This map,” he explains, “is what the surroundings of an angel supply gate look like.

 

“Normally, the shore is protected by guard towers, each about five kilometers from each other. They cover Oceania’s entire perimeter. But the supply gates are even more guarded. The small rectangle against the water line” -he points a finger to the designated spot on the map- “that’s the gate. The four squares in front of it are the extra guard towers. They’re evenly spaced from each other by about fifty meters, and placed into a square shaped formation.”

 

As Jessie listens, she comes to the realisation that Isaac is being as descriptive as he can for Seth, who has no way of knowing what the map looks like.

 

“The large half circles on either side of the square formation of towers is the two supply depots. They’re no guards in there, so we don’t really need to worry about them.”

 

“So many do we have to take out exactly?”

 

Isaac takes the map away. “A minimum of six. There’s one angel in each of the four guard towers, and two more in front of the gate itself.”

 

“Why a minimum of six?” wonders Jessie. “You think there might be more?”

 

He shakes his head. “Not at the gate itself, no. But the moment they become aware of your presence, they’ll call for backup. When the nearest perimeter towers get the distress signal, it will take them about six minutes to reach you, twelve for the second nearest, eighteen for the third… You get the idea.”

 

Seth clicks his tongue. “So you’re saying that the moment we get spotted, we have to deal with two extra angels every six minutes?”

 

“Exactly.”

 

It takes about another half hour, but eventually the wind picks, the smell of salt permeates the air, and the outline of buildings can be seen in the distance; they’d made it to the shore. The deep blue of the ocean merges with the skyline, giving the scene before them an even backdrop. As they get closer, Jessie identifies what Isaac described: two thin beige towers, each about fifteen meters tall, rise from the sand, almost glowing under the desert sun. Behind each of them is another identical tower and, behind those, is the gate. A wall of shimmering air, like liquid oxygen, enclosed by dozens of control panels. So close, yet almost impossible to reach. 

 

Past the towers on either side are the supply depots, only about one story tall and covered in garage doors from all sides. Jessie disregards them for now and turns her attention back to the two nearest towers. As the car is still relatively far from its destination, she can just barely make out the shining silhouetted aura of an angel at the top of each. 

 

Even though she can’t really see them, she already knows what they look like. Angels, having no natural physical form, they simply adopt the bodily appearance of what they were told was “typical a human look”.  The result is thousands of plainly attractive white men, like an army of living room models from a department store catalog, all wearing the same beige military camo pants. 

 

“Alright”,Jessie says as they approach the gate area, “the first angel is at 11 o’clock, about 5 stories up. Need me do stop the car?”

 

“Nah, this should be fine. The kid said that this stand has some geostopic-

 

“Gyroscopic,” Isaac interrupts.

 

“-technology that should help me shoot,” finishes Seth, ignoring the correction. “Just do your best to drive straight.”

 

Jessie glances at the many, many bumps, dips, dunes, rocks, and cracks ahead of the car. She swallows. “Sure. I can do that.”

 

“Don’t shoot yet,” Isaac advises. “Jessie, turn like you want to go around the left supply depot.”

 

She does as he says, grip tightening on the steering wheel.

 

“When you’re close enough that the only tower you can see is the one on the left front, fire.”

 

Jessie frowns. “Won’t they see us if we get that close?”

 

“No, no, no. Angels see differently than we do it’s- it doesn’t matter. They’re looking for something moving at walking or running speed, not a car. They won’t see you.”

 

Her frown deepens, but she stays silent. It hasn’t escaped her that Isaac is asking them to put a lot of blind faith in him, but she knows they have no other choice. His knowledge of the situation puts him five steps ahead. Her instructions when it came to angels had always been the same: do not approach and/or kill on sight. She’s never really had to stop and learn about the intricacies of their eyeballs.

 

Jessie only speaks again once they reach the spot specified by Isaac, her foot heavy on the accelerator. “Four o’clock, now!”

 

A loud whistle followed by the sound of a silenced shot deafen her for a second. She holds her breath, unable to check if the shot landed. 

 

“Hell yeah!” Seth cheers. “One down, five to go!”

 

Jessie grins as she makes a right, maneuvering the car in between the two left towers and the supply depot. “One o’clock, now!”

 

A second loud whistle and muffled shot are heard, this time followed by a euphoric shout from Seth. She makes sharp right, driving in between the two left towers, now facing the right ones. “Eleven o’clock, now!”

 

It’s just as the words leave her mouth that Jessie meets the new hate of her life: a rock roughly the size of a fist, lying right in front of her right tire. It all happens in a split second, and she can do nothing but watch it unfold. The car rolls over the rock, jostling its passengers, just as Seth presses the trigger. “FUCK!”

 

The shot misses, of course it does. She hits the breaks and looks above, where the angel is staring down at them. He ducks down, most likely getting to the ground floor to chase them. From the corner of her eye, she can see the two gate guards moving towards the car, their auras a glint in the sunlight. 

 

A loud beeping is heard from Isaac’s side of the screen. “Six minutes start now.”

 

With a frustrated growl, Jessie sets the car in reverse and drives them back behind the left tower closest to the gate. There, she brakes and hops out of the car, taking the shotgun with her. The tentacle creature unsticks itself from the dashboard and floats her way. She turns to Seth.

 

_ Distraction. _

 

He nods as he gets behind the wheel. The car skids away between the towers in a burst of sandy dust. Jessie peers on the other side of the tower to see the two gate guards jog forward, no doubt trying to maintain eye contact with the car as the others chase after it.

 

Jessie speaks quickly, gaze still stuck to the guards. “When you hear my gun go off, get to the gate as fast as possible.” Not waiting for an answer, she sprints forward. 

 

As she gets closer, the angels’ golden auras start to feel stronger, oppressive, almost suffocating. Her skin feels hot and heavy, just enough to be too much. It reminds her of when she’d spend time as a kid hiding under the covers of a warm bed, just to see how long she could stand it before the need for fresh air took over.  Her heart hammers in her chest and she wills her breathing to steady and her legs to move faster.

 

It’s when she’s actually close enough to see the auras’ shape, the pale golden glow like a bubble around the angel’s bodies, that the nearest one notices her. Immediately he turns to face her, his eyes widening. Jessie pumps her shotgun, aims it towards his head, and before the angel can do anything else, fires. The spread of the shot is wide, and Jessie is so, so close. The shell bursts in the angel’s throat and his corporeal form vanishes, a light golden glow the only thing that remains.

 

After that, three things happen simultaneously. The suffocating pressure alleviates, the tentacle creature glides to the gate in a speedy blur, and the remaining angel grabs the end of the shotgun. The action sparks a tug of war between him and Jessie, both doing their best to take the gun away from the other. It ends when she steps forward, throwing the angel of balance. 

 

Pushing her small advantage, she swings her leg under one of his ankles and grabs the shirt of his military uniform with her free hand, throwing him down into the sand. She drops to her knees on his chest and pumps the shotgun, firing straight into his skull, point blank. Instantly, his body dissipates, and she hits the ground with a small  _ umph! _ . 

 

The sound of tires on sand echo across the stone structures surrounding her. Jessie spins around on her knees to see the car coming back her way through the right towers, the angels almost caught up to it, their running speed inhumanly fast. Seth slows the Jeep down for a second, gives her a thumbs up, and drives away toward the desert. 

 

The two angels ignore him, now entirely focused on Jessie. It seems clear they know their companions are gone, and that she’s the one to blame. Feeling braver than she should,  she stands up and makes a come hither motion with her hand, willing a smile on her face. She hopes it looked cocky, but knows her wild eyes give away her fear.

 

The angels spring into action. She points her gun their way as they run towards her. She considers shooting, but knows it’s pointless; without the element of surprise, they can dodge her shots enough to stop them from being lethal. So she switches tactics at the last second and grabs the gun by the barrel, knowing she’s probably burning her hands as she does so. Too taken aback to react in time, the first angel is knocked to the ground by a hit of a shotgun swung like a baseball bat over the skull. 

 

Distracted, she doesn’t see the second angel step behind her. Using the momentum of her swing, he pushes her forward and rips the gun from her grasp. The gun slides out of her hands easily, her finger to longer around the trigger to stop it. 

 

She spins around and stares down the barrel of her own gun. Her breathing is shallow, the aura of two angels around her pressing strongly against her lungs. 

 

She isn’t afraid; he can’t hurt her, and he won’t kill her. It’s the one thing angels can’t do, under any circumstance. Every part of their being is hard wired against the concept of death, their body stopping them from ever ending the life of another being. To an angel, killing is as foreign of a thought as it is for a human to rip out one for their own eyeballs and eat it as an afternoon snack.

 

And yet, Jessie has to stop him, because she knows that when he’s done with her, he’s going after Seth. And, unlike her, Seth can be incapacitated very easily with a shotgun.

 

Grabbing the gun back is out of the question, the angel is much too fast. She coughs up her next breath. The angel’s face contorts into the approximation of a smirk, his muscles obviously not used to the motion. The resulting expression is more creepy than anything else, and so Jessie tears her gaze away from her opponent’s, unsettled. 

 

In doing so, she spots a sparkle in the sand, not a meter away from her left foot. She lowers her head, not wanting the angel to see her intentions, and looks towards the glimmer. She smiles; it’s the hunting knife. Seth must’ve dropped it when he’d driven by not two minutes ago. 

 

Quick as a flash, she kicks violently into the sand, lifting it into the air and momentarily blinding the angel. Jessie uses the split second her distraction gives her to dive for the knife.  

 

The angel recovers quickly and points the gun at her once more, ready to shoot, but it’s already too late. Jessie skids forward, ducking just enough to put the barrel of the gun right against her forehead, stopping the angel in his tracks. He tilts his head, confused. Her expression twists into a crazed smirk, as if to show him how it’s really done, pressing her skull harder against the edge of the shotgun, before lifting her hand and planting the knife in the angel’s throat. 

 

The angel vanishes and the gun falls to the floor. 

 

Jessie releases a content sigh, letting go of the knife as her shoulders sag. Just as she’s about to look for the car, a shot rings out, and Jessie is pushed to the ground by a foreign impact. 

 

On her hands and knees in the sand, she coughs as she rolls over, tasting blood in her mouth. The angel she had knocked unconscious is now standing above her, smoking shotgun in hand. 

 

Annoyed, Jessie lets out a stuttery groan as she stands back up on wobbly feet, breathing now twenty times harder than it was before. She looks down at her torso to discover her clothes torn around large wound on her right side, blood rapidly gushing down on her skin. She whines. “Aw man, that was  _ literally _ my only shirt.”

 

There’s a lengthy, silent pause, before the angel’s eye widen in understanding. “Sesaki.”

 

Jessie smiles weakly through another cough, feeling blood on her teeth. Apparently, not being able to feel pain gives you quite the reputation among those who use it as their primary weapon.

 

She’s about to answer when another, much quieter shot is heard, and in an instant the angel vanishes into nothing. She turns towards the source of the sound to see Seth getting back behind the wheel of the Jeep, waving at her. 

 

Just then, the tentacle creature zooms past her and lands into the car, no doubt back in place on its dashboard. She can faintly hear Isaac shouting from the screen that he’d finished hacking the gate. 

 

Jessie presses down on her wound as she waits for the car to get to her. Pain or no pain, she’s still vulnerable to blood loss, and doesn’t think she can stay standing for much longer, much less fight. She closes her eyes and counts backwards from fifteen, trying to relaxes and lower her heart rate. 

 

She opens them back up when she feels the car come to a stop next to her. Seth is grinning at her from the driver’s seat. “Ready to go?’

 

She looks at him with a smile and, just for a second, sees him like she saw him on their first day in Oceania. His matte silver skin unblemished, his hair cut too short, his face split into a constant smirk filled with disingenuous apathy.

 

She blinks, and present Seth blinks back at her, with his grey skin covered in scars, his licorice hair long and greasy, his expression showing nothing but pure excitement. It sinks in, right then and there; their torture is over. Her smile widens and despite her best efforts, the beating of her heart accelerates again. She nods. 

 

Careful of her injured side, she gets into the back of the car and collapse against its back door, somehow still smiling and giddy. An alarm rings from the screen, causing Isaac to speak up frantically. “Time’s up! Fucking drive!”

 

Behind them, Jessie can sees two angels sprinting their way to them from either side of the towers. Seth steps on the gas with a boisterous laugh. “We fuckin’ did it!”

 

Jessie keeps her eyes on their pursuers, her fist pumping the air, whooping and hollering as they speed toward the gate, the angels too far to have a shot at catching them. She doesn’t think she’s ever been this happy, her body tingling with barely contained joy and relief as Seth’s laughter gets louder. She looks at the scorching southern sun one last time, her grin so wide she can feel her lips split. 

 

It’s with ecstatic shouts that the Jeep crosses the gate, Jessie’s final words to the desert echoing against the tower walls.

 

“FUCK YOU!”

  
  
  
  



	3. Episode 1.5: Bulletproof Baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story doesn't make sense, but no one reads it, so it doesn't have to.

**_About 40 years ago, somewhere along the coast of East Asia…_ **

_The sergeant warily drags his hand down his face, feeling his puffy eyes and splotchy facial hair. When he’d first stepped into the control room, he’d been sporting a stylish five o’clock shadow. Now it just feels like a hedgehog is clinging to his jaw. He hasn’t seen his own face in hours, but he can feel his eyes are bloodshot with every burning blink. The neverending beepings of the various monitors, radars, and telecoms feel like pebbles being thrown against his eardrums. He knows his headache wouldn’t be so bad if he had a better understanding of everything happening around him. The military personnel running around keeps shouting commands at each other in what he guesses has to be at least three different languages._

_A monitor near him starts to wail an error message in mandarin -or was it korean? God, he was never good at these things. He casts a wary look at his translator, who moves his hand before his face in a dismissive manner. Nothing to worry about then._

_The sergeant checks for any new information on the radars in front of him before turning to his translator again. Looking at the poor guy is the only thing keeping him sane; at least there’s someone in here who has it worse than he does. The guy had been here six hours before the sergeant, meaning he’s been hard at work for forty hours. Minimum. His shaking hands are holding onto what the sergeant hopes is only coffee. His right eye twitches violently as he barks an order at one of the workers furiously typing at his desk. The translator looks like he’d love nothing more than a valid excuse to punch one of them. If the sergeant is honest with himself, he’s tempted to give him the okay to do so -just to see what happens. They could both use some stress relief._

_Or maybe he could ask the translator to punch him instead. Maybe then he’d pass out. God, he wishes he could pass out. But he can’t; too much is riding on the success of this mission._

_If the crew he sent out can get what he needs, it could change the whole game. One specimen can allow the development of… of something angels will finally be fucking afraid of. He looks at the radars again. Beep. Beep. Beep._

_It’s about fifteen minutes later, when the sergeant is beginning to seriously consider breaking his own skull against the desk, that things get interesting. One of the tech guys suddenly gets up behind his desk, sending documents and pens flying to the floor. He shouts something frantically to the translator. He turns to the sergeant as he swipes a hand through his hair. “Sir, one of the bio detectors found four life forms coming this way from the dark zone,” explains the translator._

_The sergeant goes to activate his radio, but thinks better of it at the last second. He turns back to face the overly noisy control room and does what he’s wanted to do most for the past thirty six hours. “EVERYBODY, SHUT THE FUCK UP!”_

_A hush falls over the room, leaving only the sound of the computers echoing against the screen covered walls. The sergeant sighs, glad he didn’t need the translator for that one._

_He leans against the desk and presses the button that turns on the microphone. “This is Sergeant Davis to Strike Team 4. Strike Team 4, do you read me?.”_

_A heavy silence rings in his ears. The sergeant tries again. “Strike Team 4, do you copy?”_

_Loud static is heard, followed by a heavy cough. Finally, an accented voice comes through the speakers. “We copy sergeant. This is private Anderson, we have eyes on the return ship, sir.” His words are interrupted by heavy static. “ -ing our way, sir.”_

_The sergeant frowns. “Why am I speaking to you, private? Where is your team leader?”_

_“Ah…shhhh... is down, sir. It’s just the three of us, sir. Team… shhh… taken out.”_

_The sergeant rubs a hand down his face for what feels like the millionth time today. Crap, another team gone -wait, did he say three?_

_“Private, we read four biological signatures. Do you have the specimen?”_

_“Yes, sir.”_

_The sergeant feels a wave of relief hit him. They had lost a team, but maybe it wasn’t for nothing. This could still work out._

_“Sir, I’m sending...shhhh... and info… shhhh… get them any moment.”_

_The sergeant frowns again. The connection is getting worse, and he isn’t quite sure what’s happening anymore. He needs to figure out as much as possible before the it cuts out completely. “Private, what subject did you manage to bring back?”_

_“Could you repeat that, sir? The connection...shhh… ah, fuck… shhh…. SHOOT IT! SHOOT IT FOR FUCK’S… shhh…”_

_The translator visibly tenses at his side. This can’t fuck up, not now, not when they’re so close._  
_“Private!”_

_The silence that follows doesn’t last much more than a moment, but to the sergeant, those seconds feel like a decade. Finally, the radio comes to life once again._

_“Sorry about that...shhh… It’s a bit hectic out here,” the private says with a breathless laugh. A loud, pained groan is heard in the background through his words. “What did you want, sir?”_  
_He decides to make it short. “Specimen code.”_

_“Ah, right, that’s uh… shhh… subject number… shh… J...shhh...seh… shh… i.”_

_The sergeant frowns in confusion as he turns to his translator. “Did he say ‘Jessie’?_

_The translator shrugs, just as confused as he is. One of the computer techs points to his monitor, saying something in what the sergeant thinks might be japanese._

_“We just received the information the strike team sent,” the translator says. He points to a line among the long row of text on the screen. “This is the subject number.”_

_The sergeant squints at the monitor: Subject J06092 Sesaki. He grabs his phone and quickly sends it to the medical unit. They’re going to need as much information as possible, and fast. He leans back to the microphone. “Copy that. We’ll see you at homebase, private.”_

_“Ten four.”_

_The translator sags into a nearby desk chair as the sergeant straightens out. The cacophony gradually starts up again across the control room. He exits it in quick strides. His phone is going to start ringing soon, and he’s going to need some silence for this next part._

_His phone starts to vibrate, the screen indicating it’s a call from one of the lab techs. He smiles. For the first time in a long time, things are going his way. If they can keep this kid alive, they_ can win.


End file.
